


...he's on his knees and alicia doesn't know

by frankiesin



Series: Say It With Neon [20]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: ...why didn't that come up as a recommended tag, Closeted Character, Closeted Mikey Way, Extramarital Affairs, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Transphobia, M/M, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29326872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankiesin/pseuds/frankiesin
Summary: My Chemical Romance breaks up because of an affair. Spencer promises it's not his fault.
Relationships: Alicia Simmons/Mikey Way, Sarah Em/Mikey Way, Spencer Smith/Mikey Way
Series: Say It With Neon [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/766746
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	...he's on his knees and alicia doesn't know

**Author's Note:**

> The title is ripped from the song Scotty Doesn't Know, which fits pretty well into the Mikey/Spencer affair in this universe. 
> 
> Also, hi, long time no see. I dipped back into bandom/the MM17 universe for a second because I couldn't get this idea out of my head. I still don't know if/when I'll get back to WSYICT, so sorry about that. Please enjoy these crumbs??? Perhaps????????

**March 24, 2013; Los Angeles, California.**

Rochelle finds out about Spencer and Mikey only a month before My Chem breaks up, and only two months before the divorce gets leaked to the public. Rochelle finds out in the dumbest of ways, too. They’re on tour, at a show in Allentown, and Mikey’s in Belleville visiting his mom. He drives up and shows up at the hotel before the band gets back. Rochelle sees him before Spencer does, because she’s observant like that, but she doesn’t say anything about it to Spencer as they’re getting off the bus and Mikey is smoking a cigarette in the shadows. No, Rochelle waits until later, when Spencer opens his door, lets Mikey in, and accidentally makes eye contact with her from across the hall. And then she waits until they’re on the bus again the next day to start texting Spencer about it. 

She says she opened her door to go get some sodas from the machine down the hall. Spencer wants to believe her, but he knows she saw Mikey before they got in the hotel. He knows Rochelle, he knows how smart she can be, how easily she picks up on his mood shifting, even after everything that’s happened in their lives. 

Rochelle keeps their conversation over text, thankfully. Spencer can’t handle a hushed conversation on the back of the bus. She knows he’s kind of got a thing with Dallon again, and they both know that Dallon would have opinions of their own about the Mikey thing. Rochelle doesn’t know that Spencer and Brendon hooked up a few nights prior, back when they were drunk and having a good time in Toronto. 

Spencer is… somewhat honest with her about Mikey. He doesn’t tell Rochelle about London then, back in February when My Chemical Romance is still a band and no one aside from Mikey and Spencer know about Mikey’s second engagement. He doesn’t like to talk about London in general, but he can’t bring himself to tell Rochelle that Mikey was a part of that mess. Instead, he tells her the second half of the truth: that he and Mikey met at rehab, and started sleeping together not long after. 

Rochelle believes it for about a month. 

She stops believing it when Gerard posts on the My Chem website in March, and the forums explode with theories. Spencer doesn’t pay too much attention to them, for his own sanity, but Rochelle does. She’s never really grown out of being a rabid My Chem fan, and when she sees the theory about Mikey having an affair, she shows right back up at Spencer and Linda’s house. 

“When’s the last time you talked to Mikey?” No hesitation. Spencer wishes he was surprised. He’s even less surprised when Rochelle lets herself in, kicking her Converse off and heading directly to the living room. Suddenly, they’re in high school again, and Rochelle has news about one of the bands she’s heard about on LiveJournal. She’s pulled her phone out before even sitting down, too. It’s the adult version of Spencer’s adolescence, but unfortunately, he’s fucked his way into the headlines. 

“ _ I think Mikey’s cheating on Alicia. I think he’s having an affair with someone--maybe even a fan--and when the band found out, it ruined them _ ,” Rochelle reads off. She looks up. “Would you consider yourself a fan of My Chemical Romance, Spencer?”

Spencer freezes. His mind flashes back to three and a half years ago, to a cold night in London and some teens with a camera staring right at him and Mikey. My Chem knows about Mikey’s London affair, but Spencer’s sure that  _ that _ wasn’t the downfall of the band. It shouldn’t take three years to fall apart that brutally. He also knows that Gerard has no idea about Mikey’s current affair with Spencer, because Spencer had lunch at Gerard’s house after rehab last week and no one said anything. Someone would have said something if he was the reason My Chem was burning alive. 

Rochelle’s eyes go wide. “Oh my God. So it  _ is _ you.”

“What’s me?” Spencer’s not sure why he decides to feign ignorance. He’s pretty sure he knows where Rochelle is going with this. All he hopes is that she doesn’t have the London image on her phone. No one else recognised him then, because he’d been in the middle of the beginning of his downward spiral, but Rochelle would know now. She’s smart. She knows what he looked like in London because he went straight from London to Seattle. He barely remembers the three days he spent at his parents’ house in Colorado before boarding yet another plane to go fix his relationship with his best friend. 

“You’re the reason My Chem broke up,” Rochelle says. She doesn’t sound disappointed, or mad. My Chem is one of their favourite bands, and if London had killed them, Rochelle wouldn’t have let Spencer live it down. She’s different now. Both of them are different now, now that they’re in therapy and now that they have a common enemy (Brendon’s ego). 

“I don’t think so,” Spencer says. He knows it’s not his fault. He knows, because he talks to Mikey almost as much as he talks to any of his band members, and he knows that Mikey has a lot of incriminating photos out there now. The London picture isn’t the worst. The worst is of a girl named Sarah Em with a noticeable pregnancy and a ring on her finger, and Mikey sitting next to her at breakfast. 

Spencer knows about Sarah Em, and he knows that she’s cheating on Mikey as much as Mikey’s cheating on her. What he doesn’t get, and what he isn’t sure he can tell Rochelle either, is why Mikey won’t just call Sarah on her bullshit pregnancy. Mikey’s not the dad. Mikey literally can’t be the dad, because Mikey’s got the same gear as Spencer. Mikey’s further in the closet than Spencer was ever allowed to be, but at the end of the day, Spencer would rather out himself than pretend to be a dad to his cheating side affair. 

Mikey’s in over his head, Spencer knows that much. 

“Why not?” Rochelle asks. Her eyes are locked on him. Spencer knows that look. It’s the same one she had when they were in Chicago, and when rumours about Mikey and Pete started coming out. Spencer knows a lot more about Mikey now, and he knows that Rochelle was right about their relationship, but he can’t tell her that Mikey’s trans too. That’s not his job.

“You can’t tell anyone else this,” Spencer says. He rubs his face and takes a seat next to Rochelle. “I mean it. The internet might know, they might not, but  _ I  _ know this because Mikey told me, and I don’t want to get involved in this more than I already am.”

Rochelle shrugs. “You’re the idiot sleeping with a married man.”

“He’s engaged,” Spencer says.

Rochelle’s mouth snaps shut. Spencer can see the math going on in her head as she puts the rest of the equation together. She blinks twice and opens her phone again, typing. It takes less than ten seconds for Rochelle to find the Sarah Em picture, and Spencer knows when she’s found it by the look on her face. “Holy shit, how old is she?”

“Twenty one, I think,” Spencer says, followed by, “yeah, I know. It’s weird. I was twenty-one the first time I fucked Mikey too. I try not to think about that too hard.”

He means it in the way that Mikey clearly has a preference for younger partners, at least for short term flings. He means it in the way that Pete and Mikey were both around twenty one when they first met too, and how Mikey seems to have fixated on that age whether he wants to admit it or not. 

Rochelle frowns. “Spence, you’re twenty four, not twenty one.”

Spencer freezes again. He’s caught in his lie, and he has two options: keep lying to get himself out, or tell Rochelle the rest. He folds his hands. He unfolds his hands. Rochelle keeps watching him, searching for whatever he isn’t telling her. Spencer knows there’s no point in lying, not to her. “...Mikey and I first had a thing in 2009. In London.”

“Oh,” Rochelle says. “Is that why Gabe Saporta doesn’t like you any more?”

Gabe knows about London. Gabe was at Mikey’s apartment in London, and put two and two together. Gabe is also still best friends with both Pete and Alicia somehow, and has been posting with Alicia a lot recently. Gabe is also Pete, Mikey, and Alicia’s ex. There’s a lot of things Rochelle doesn’t know, and too much that Spencer does know. 

He nods. “Probably. He knew about it.”

“London?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

That’s putting it lightly. Spencer isn’t surprised as, in the weeks following, Mikey’s reputation hits the floor faster than Mikey can. He’s not surprised either when Mikey shows up after his divorce hearing, still in his little suit and with his tie half undone. Rochelle asks for updates, and Spencer gives what he can. He knows Rochelle can keep a secret, but it’s brutal, knowing what they both know and not having anyone to say it to.

It takes him another two weeks after the divorce to ask Mikey why he didn’t say anything about the pregnancy. Everyone and their mother knows that Mikey knocked up a girl twelve years younger than him, and everyone knows they’re engaged because of the baby. Spencer manages to get Mikey somewhat lucid and sober, the two of them sprawled out on the couch and waiting for Linda to get off work so they can catch up on  _ Suits _ together.

“So, we both know you’re not the dad,” Spencer says. 

Mikey shoots him an ice cold glare. 

Spencer puts his hands up. “Dude, I’m curious. Why stick around for a kid that’s not yours?”

“She thinks it’s mine,” Mikey says. His voice is clipped. “She doesn’t know.”

“That you’re…?” Spencer doesn’t finish the sentence. Even though they’ve talked about it before, in London, years ago, Mikey doesn’t like it when people point out that he’s trans. He’s stealth, which Spencer respects, but there’s no one else here. Spencer still knows not to mention it, at least not explicitly. “She thinks you actually got her pregnant, and instead of trying to save your original marriage, you let a fangirl blackmail you into, what, parenthood? The worst PR stunt a guy could pull?”

“Me and Alicia were never going to work,” Mikey snarls. There’s venom in there that Spencer doesn’t get (he will, years later, when Mikey finally comes out to himself and Spencer connects the dots between all the years they were fucking), venom and anger and silent, sad resignation. “I don’t love her. Don’t know if I ever did, actually. I was riding off of a high of one final summer, and I thought if I married the girl that made everything worth it, the rest of the summer would be a fun story to tell. And then Sarah happened, and…”

He trails off. He reaches out, lights a cigarette, and stares down at the embers without smoking it. They should really be out back on the porch for this, so that Mikey can stress smoke in peace and Spencer and Linda can keep their house from smelling like an ashtray. Mikey frowns at his cigarette. “I don’t love her either. I’m not even sure if I like her, but I don’t have another choice. She thinks the baby’s mine, and I can’t…”

“You don’t want to come out to her,” Spencer finishes it for him. 

“She could ruin my life if she knew,” Mikey says. He looks up at Spencer, and Spencer recognises what’s going on behind Mikey’s green eyes. Fear. Fear of being seen before he’s ready, before he can even see himself. “She  _ will _ ruin my life if she knows, because she doesn’t love me either. She just loves the fame that comes with being in a scandal with me.”

Spencer gets it. Or at least, he thinks he gets it. He can’t see himself in Mikey’s situation, because he’s never been closeted the way Mikey is. He’s been hidden, someone’s secret, but people have always known that he’s queer and trans. Panic got too big too fast, and people figured out who Spencer had been before he’d been a drummer. Part of him hated it, and wished he could just be Spencer, but most of him knows it’s okay. He and Rochelle and Dallon are doing something big, simply by being themselves and not hiding. They’re giving teens across the country the power to come out, to embrace who they are, to not have to hide or feel like they’re alone.

There isn’t anyone like that for Mikey. All he’s got is Spencer and bad coping mechanisms. Spencer’s pretty sure he himself is a bad coping mechanism, given how far Mikey’s in the closet about his sexuality, and how quickly he stomps out any rumours about him being bisexual. 

“Does she know about me?” Spencer asks. 

Mikey shakes his head. “No one does.”

“Your bandmates did,” Spencer saya. “In London.”

“Gee wanted me to tell Alicia,” Mikey says. “I never did. I… I told her about Gabe, but Gabe had already told her that. I’m not surprised he’s siding with Alicia in all this. He’s right, too.”

“So no one but your bandmates know about this,” Spencer says. “And they don’t even know we’re still… whatever’s happening.”

“No,” Mikey says. He looks up from his cigarette and asks Spencer to keep it that way, to keep Linda from putting the pieces together. Mikey doesn’t know Linda. He doesn’t know that Linda doesn’t talk to magazines or fans, that she keeps to herself and Spencer does everything he can to keep it that way. Linda’s a normal person, not a rockstar, and she wants to stay in her own lane, working with local LA politics and not being pulled into Spencer’s public bullshit. 

Spencer promises to keep things on the down low, but he knows it’s too late for that. Rochelle already knows. She knows everything, and Spencer will keep talking to her now that he knows she’s got her mouth shut. He needs someone to talk to, and Mikey isn’t going to give him anything.

Mikey settles back into the couch. His face is drawn. His shoulders are tense. Spencer knows there’s more to this, more that Mikey isn’t saying or just doesn’t know how to say. And Spencer, because he’s not much better, let’s Mikey stew in his own silence. He’s here for Mikey, not to talk him out of his bad decisions, but to  _ be _ a bad decision. 

No one needs to know. No one but him, Mikey, and Rochelle, because Rochelle knows everything. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed!!


End file.
